Mazdoor Sangharsh Sankalp Abhiyan
We Refuse Death from Covid-19! We Refuse Death from Unemployment and Starvation!
We Refuse to Toil and Grind like Slaves!!
We Demand a Human and Dignified Life!
We Will Fight for Our Rights!
We Will Not Stop until We Have Them!
Friends! Brothers and Sisters!
The Covid-19 pandemic has completely laid bare the cold, naked reality of the entire capitalist system. On the one hand, the workers are battling the risks of the Coronavirus and death, and on the other hand, the atrociously anti-worker Modi Government has imposed an utterly unplanned and ill-conceived lockdown, which, too, has taken hundreds of lives. No arrangements were made for those migrant workers who wanted to return to their homes. Consequently, the haphazard Shramik Special trains have caused deaths of at least 80 workers and their children. Now again, equally arbitrarily, in the name of lifting the lockdown, we are being pushed back to work in factories and workshops, so that the capitalists’ machinery of profit, which was at a standstill for months, can be set into motion again. As a result, workers in dozens of factories and offices have contracted the virus, the infection is spreading rapidly in working-class neighbourhoods and causing their deaths, however, many of these numbers are being hidden and suppressed on a massive scale. The capitalists and their agents have given us the alternative – either die of hunger and unemployment or die of Covid-19! This is no choice at all and we have the right to be protected from death by the virus as well as death from hunger and unemployment.
The Modi Government arranged special flights and AC buses for the progenies of the affluent and wealthy as well as the religious devotees from the middle and trader classes, but left the workers to die on the streets. Remember! It is we the workers who have built the apartments, bungalows and condominia of the filthy rich, it is we who have built their cars and their aeroplanes, it is we who have built this entire world! But what do we have in this capitalist world? Nothing! All we have is the duty to toil tirelessly for twelve, sometimes fourteen hours, in order to grow the profits of the owners, to fill the coffers of the rich. If we look at only the government owned warehouses, then these are hoarding and leaving to rot stock of foodgrain over three times their capacity, that is, 7.5 crore metric tons of food grain. According to a recent report, in the last four months itself, 65 lakh tonnes of foodgrains were allowed to rot and go waste, which could have been used to feed a population of 18 crores during the entire period of lockdown. This grain was not cultivated by the likes of Tata-Birla-Ambanis or rich farmers and landowning class, it, too, was cultivated by our labouring hands. And yet, during the Covid-19 crisis, we were left to die hungry, our children were left languishing-agonizing for food and to be killed walking on the roads! Why? We make everything from a tiny needle to giant ships, and yet we have no right or control over anything. While those bloodsucking leeches, that is, the entire parasitic class of owners, contractors, agents, who live off the backs of workers, are making merry without working for anything. It is not something that we already did not know, however, the crisis deepened by the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed this stark reality all the more vividly in front of us.
Are you willing to accept and put up with this wage slavery of capital? Have you accepted seeing your kids crying and suffering in front of your eyes as your destiny? Are you willing to accept this animal-like existence as your life? If yes, then we have nothing to say to you! But if your heart too is revolting against these conditions, then we will have to leave our despair behind and make a new beginning. A new beginning to fight for our rights! We will have to ourselves arise first, and then awaken our brothers, sisters and friends. That is why workers across the country have come together to launch this campaign.
The profiteering of the capitalists-owners had already created an economic crisis much before the Covid-19 pandemic started. The pandemic deepened this crisis even more and made it even more acute. But, like always, through layoffs-retrenchments and lockouts-closures, by withholding wages, by forcing us to work in this pandemic without any safety or security, the entire cost of this crisis is being extracted from us workers. If we want to return home, the government does not make any arrangements because then that will cause a shortage of labour for the owners-contractors and an increase in the average wages. As a result, most of our brothers and sisters took to walking on the roads and highways all the way to their homes with their children. Many of them died walking, many died of hunger and many were crushed by vehicles and trains on roads and rails. Of those who went on the trains, many died, and many fell sick, because the Modi Government deliberately made no arrangements for food or water, and kept misdirecting, rerouting the trains to wrong destinations for weeks. Can you imagine such an insensitive, inhuman, and anti-worker government? This is how the owners, contractors, agents, and their representative Modi government is extracting the price of this crisis, which has resulted from their own profiteering and deepened due to the mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic, from us, and we are paying the price through our sweat, blood, and life. Now the Modi Government and State governments led by both Congress and the BJP, by bringing in ordinances, are robbing us of our legal labour rights as well. This is Modi Government’s “Ramrajya”! If you are a worker, then it does not matter whether you are Hindu or Muslim or of any other religion, the meaning of this “Ramrajya” for you is to toil uncomplainingly for 12-14 hours, so that the pockets of your owners and contractors stay full!
But, we will not put up with this any longer! Our patience is fast running out. We, too, have the right to a dignified life. We want freedom from hunger, unemployment, homelessness, illiteracy, exploitation, and oppression! We want all our labour rights! It is we who produce all the wealth and riches of this country, not capitalists like Tata-Birla-Ambanis and owners-contractors. If that would have been the case, they would not have stopped us from going home, they would have worked in their own factories, furnaces, mines, and farms and produced wealth themselves. That is why, friends, today, we too must firmly stand our ground. If our demands are not met, we will come out onto the streets, organize movement and fight until we get what is rightfully ours!
Our demands:
1) All the amendments being made in the labour laws – from allowing the workers to be exploited for 12 hours a day like slaves to ending the workers’ right to strike and unionize – under the pretext of the economic crisis that has worsened due to the Covid-19 pandemic be repealed with immediate effect!
2) Provide rations to all workers and working masses without any stipulations regarding APL-BPL ration cards!
3) The workers must not be compelled to join work until the danger of the transmission of the coronavirus is present. Stop putting the workers at risk in the name of lifting the lockdown. Grant them paid leave and safeguard their employment. Put an immediate end to the retrenchments of workers during Covid-19 crisis!
4) Grant Rs.15,000/- per month as subsistence allowance to the so-called ‘self-employed’ informal workers such as rickshaw-pullers, hawkers, street sellers and vendors, make provisions for regular and free COVID testing for them, and provide them with all the necessary safety equipment!
5) Arrange free transport for all migrant workers returning to their homes following all safety measures. Initiate criminal proceedings against the Railway Minister and all the other officials responsible for the criminal negligence in the travel arrangements made for migrant workers up till now!
6) Provide all necessary safety equipment to health workers and workers and employees engaged in the production and distribution of essential goods and services like transport and electricity, as well as the common police personnel working on the ground. Make provisions for free and regular COVID testing and treatment for them!
7) Institute universal public distribution system for all essential goods and services!
8) Provide adequate compensation and a permanent job to one family member of all those who have died walking to their homes or in Shramik Special trains during the lockdown owing to the thoughtlessness and callousness of the government!
9) Levy special cesses and taxes on the capitalist and wealthy classes for the resources required to battle the Covid-19 crisis in the country!
10) Build robust and quality public healthcare system. Establish new government hospitals, health centres, and special epidemic control centres on a large scale. India has the requisite human resources for this, that is, there are enough doctors, nurses and other medically trained workforce, who will also get employment through this. Ensure right to universal healthcare for all citizens!
11) Nationalize all private hospitals, nursing homes, and pathology laboratories. Strict action must be taken against those hospitals and labs that scam their way out of free COVID testing and treatment. All OPDs and clinics treating other diseases that have been closed in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis must be reopened immediately!
12) Make it legally binding on the rentier landlord class to not extract rent during the pandemic. In exceptional situations, the rent be paid by the government!
13) During Covid-19 pandemic, 18 crore homeless and 18 crore slum dwelling Indians be provided with permanent housing, and all vacant houses – public as well as private, be acquired for this purpose, and a public housing system be set up by the government!
14) Revoke the anti-people project of the CAA-NRC and use the entire fund allocated for NPR-NRC in battling the Covid-19 crisis in the country!
15) A public audit be conducted of the PM-CARES fund, and the thousands of crores of rupees accumulated in the fund be spent in battling the Covid-19 crisis, under the supervision of people’s committees!
16) Tough measures be put in place to restrain police brutality and police violence on the migrant workers as well as other workers during the Covid-19 crisis and guilty policemen must be immediately punished!
17) Put an end to the arrests and repression of all pro-people social-political activists and intellectuals amidst Corona crisis and release all political prisoners immediately!
18) Immediately abolish the system of all kinds of casual, temporary and contractual labour for work of regular and perennial nature and stall fixed term employment!
19) The pending cases in the Labour department must not be delayed under the pretext of the Covid-19 pandemic and these must be resolved as soon as possible!
20) The process of withdrawing money from PF must be simplified and all obstacles in this process must be done away with, in order to put an end to scamming and commissioneering by the management, owners, or contractors!
21) Currently, state governments are making identity cards only for construction workers. This provision must be extended to factory workers, because workers in the informal and unorganised sector generally do not have any proof of identification as workers!
22) Minimise the gigantic defence budget of India and utilise the funds in battling the Covid-19 crisis instead!
Friends, to live is to fight! For our rights, for our dignity, for our children! This struggle and fight has been started with the commencement of Mazdoor Sangharsh Sankalp Abhiyan. Join it! Tell your friends, colleagues and family members about it. Make others join it! This is a question of our existence. If we do not fight, these capitalists, owners and contractors will not stop until they mint the last drop of our blood into money. Call the phone numbers below to participate in this campaign.
The Workers have Resolved to Fight!
To Seize All of Their Rights!!
- Revolutionary Workers’ Party of Indian (RWPI)
In collaboration with : Delhi Mazdoor Union, Delhi State Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union, Delhi Gharelu Kamgaar Union, Delhi Ispat Udyog Mazdoor Union, Bawana Audyogik Kshetra Mazdoor Union, Delhi Metro Rail Contract Workers’ Union, Automobile Industry Contract Workers’ Union, Karawal Nagar Mazdoor Union, Krantikari MNREGA Mazdoor Union (Haryana), Nirmaan Mazdoor Union (Haryana), Baandhkaam Kamgaar Sangharsh Samiti (Maharashtra), Aambilodha Purgrasta Naagrik Sangharsh Samiti (Pune, Maharashtra), Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh (Dalli, Rajhara), Chhattisgarh Shramik Sangh (Shaheed Nagar, Beergaon), Bigul Mazdoor Dasta, Naujawan Bharat Sabha, Stree Mukti League
Contact : 9873358124, 9871771292, 9289498250, 8860743921 (Delhi), 8685030984, 8010156365, 9068886606 (Haryana), 8115491369, 9971196111, 9599067749 (Uttar Pradesh), 7070571498, 8873079266 (Bihar), 7042740669 (Uttrakhand), 6283170388 (Punjab), 8956840785, 7787364729, 8888350333, 9082861727 (Maharashtra), 8089714315, 7907765374 (Kerala), 9582712837 (Himachal Pradesh), 9989170226 (Telangana), 9993233537, 9993233527 (Chhattisgarh), 7631235116 (West Bengal)